And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0love.<\/strong>\u00a0(1 Corinthians 13:13)<\/p>\n For many people, 1 Corinthians 13 is their favorite chapter in the Bible. Because it describes the character and nature of love so well, it is sometimes called \u201cThe Love Chapter.\u201d These words conclude the chapter and tell of the never-ending nature of love.<\/p>\n The three great pursuits of the Christian life are not miracles, power, and gifts; they are\u00a0faith<\/strong>,\u00a0hope<\/strong>, and\u00a0love<\/strong>. Though the gifts are precious, and given by the Holy Spirit today, they were never meant to be the focus or goal of the Christian life. Instead, the believer\u2019s main pursuit is\u00a0faith<\/strong>,\u00a0hope<\/strong>, and\u00a0love<\/strong>.<\/p>\n What is your Christian life focused on? What do you really want more of? It should all come back to\u00a0faith<\/strong>,\u00a0hope<\/strong>, and\u00a0love<\/strong>. If it doesn\u2019t, we need to receive God\u2019s sense of priorities, and put our focus where it belongs.<\/p>\n Because\u00a0faith<\/strong>,\u00a0hope<\/strong>, and\u00a0love<\/strong>\u00a0are so important, we should expect to see them emphasized throughout the New Testament. Think of these passages:<\/p>\n Remembering without ceasing your work of\u00a0faith<\/strong>, labor of\u00a0love<\/strong>, and patience of\u00a0hope<\/strong>\u00a0in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father.<\/em>\u00a0(1 Thessalonians 1:3)<\/p>\n But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of\u00a0faith<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0love<\/strong>, and as a helmet the\u00a0hope\u00a0<\/strong>of salvation<\/em>. (1 Thessalonians 5:8)<\/p>\n For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the\u00a0hope<\/strong>\u00a0of righteousness by\u00a0faith<\/strong>. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but\u00a0faith<\/strong>\u00a0working through\u00a0love<\/strong><\/em>. (Galatians 5:5-6)<\/p>\n 1 Peter 21-22\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/sup>Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/sup>Now that you have purified\u00a0yourselves by obeying\u00a0the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply,\u00a0from the heart.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Faith, hope, and love are all important,\u00a0but the greatest of these is love<\/strong>. Love is greatest because it will continue and even grow in the eternal state. When we are in heaven,\u00a0faith<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0hope<\/strong>\u00a0will have fulfilled their purpose. We won\u2019t need\u00a0faith<\/strong>\u00a0when we see God face to face. We won\u2019t need to\u00a0hope<\/strong>\u00a0in the coming of Jesus once He returns. But we will always\u00a0love<\/strong>\u00a0the Lord and each other and grow in that\u00a0love<\/strong>\u00a0through eternity.<\/p>\n Love<\/strong>\u00a0is also the greatest because it is an attribute of God (1 John 4:8), and faith and hope are not part of God\u2019s character and personality. God does not have\u00a0faith<\/strong>\u00a0in the way we have\u00a0faith<\/strong>, because He never has to \u201ctrust\u201d outside of Himself. God does not have\u00a0hope<\/strong>\u00a0the way we have\u00a0hope<\/strong>, because He knows all things and is in complete control. But God is love and will always be love.<\/p>\n The point isn\u2019t to get us to choose between\u00a0faith<\/strong>,\u00a0hope<\/strong>, and\u00a0love<\/strong>. The point is that without\u00a0love<\/strong>\u00a0as the motive and goal, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are meaningless distractions. If you lose love, everything is lost.<\/p>\n Let the greatness of God\u2019s live fill your life today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By David Guzik\u00a0 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these\u00a0is\u00a0love.\u00a0(1 Corinthians 13:13) For many people, 1 Corinthians 13 is their favorite chapter in the Bible. Because it describes the character and nature of love so well, it is sometimes called \u201cThe Love Chapter.\u201d These words conclude the chapter … Continue reading ““The Greatest of These is Love””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169860"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169916,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169860\/revisions\/169916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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